Chapter Nine
HETTY WAS SINGING merrily as she put the finishing touches to the second-best bedroom. She was feeling exceptionally pleased with herself. Not only had they received the vital Certificate of Public Liability, but also a few compliments too. The man from the insurance company, probably warned by the bank manager and expecting to find a crumbling ruin, had been pleasantly surprised to find the makings of a beautiful period home. She was just reliving Connor’s look of utter surprise as the man had delivered his verdict, when Connor appeared in the doorway.
‘I’m going into town for a haircut, and Caroline’s downstairs.’ Connor didn’t comment on her singing. He was probably tone-deaf.
‘Oh. Hell!’ Hetty’s triumph dissipated as she remembered the dinner party, which she had successfully blotted out of her consciousness. ‘I was supposed to be going round to sort out something to wear for this thing tonight. What are you going to wear?’
‘Clothes,’ said Connor, and stalked off.
He might at least have given the bedroom a glance, she thought crossly, now it was almost ready. It had been repainted, most of the furniture removed, the bed-hangings had been handwashed, painstakingly ironed, and rehung. The floor had been polished with something Phyllis Hempstead had concocted from an old edition of Mrs Beeton. It looked a perfect example of a young girl’s bedroom. Before opening-day, Hetty was planning to drape a nightie across the bed, put a vase of flowers on the window-sill, and find a book of poetry that was both romantic and in period. There was bound to be some Herrick somewhere.
‘Hetty!’ Caroline shouted up the stairs. ‘Do you want to go to this thing in your dungarees?’
Reluctantly, Hetty left the bedroom, making a mental note to check the date of the pictures before she finally declared it finished. She didn’t want Phyllis telling her that silhouettes weren’t popular until much later, my dear.
Hetty had been extremely busy, so the fact that she’d brought nothing with her except jeans and jumpers flitted into her list of anxieties only occasionally. Now, she had to face it. She had a hot date, nothing to wear, and Caroline determined to give her ‘a whole new look’. She shuddered, and turned her mind back to what she had managed to achieve lately.
She had drawn up a master plan of what needed doing for the grand opening the following weekend. Mrs Hempstead had allocated tasks to all her friends who had volunteered to help. Hetty had to make sure that whoever appeared at the back door or front had whatever paint, cleaning materials or tools they needed. She spent quite a lot of time chugging about in her car, cadging power tools, or buying more sugar soap and white emulsion. But as the house always looked a little better whenever she returned, she was quite happy being the gofer.
When not on the road she had her own restoration agenda, which was confined mostly to bits of cleaning you couldn’t ask anyone else to do. People are happy to recreate a working dairy (at least, the two people detailed for this task were) but no one wanted thankless tasks with little visible effect, such as washing skirting-boards in corridors. Hetty started by the front door, washing the trail of paintwork along the path the visitors would take. Nowhere they wouldn’t see got so much as a wipe. She sang as she went, and managed to resurrect most of her repertoire. She had just been struggling to remember a bit of opera that had been used in a television commercial while tackling some beading with a toothbrush, when Connor came up to tell her the man had come to inspect the house. Hetty had stopped singing mid-breath, horribly embarrassed at being caught with her tonsils showing.
‘The little black dress is an awful cliché, but it does work,’ said Caroline. ‘Do you want to look sophisticated, or sweetly pretty?’
Hetty, wearing Caroline’s bathrobe, regarded Caroline’s open wardrobe with dismay. She’d never seen so many clothes, except during the sales. Caroline didn’t keep her clothes in her bedroom. She had a special room for them, quite a large room, but it was still crammed.
‘I don’t know. What do you think?’
‘Let’s go down and have a drink and think about it.’
‘It’s only five o’clock.’
‘Is it! Hell! We’ll have to think fast then. I wonder if I could do your make-up while Susie’s doing your hair?’
Susie breezed in, refused a glass of wine, and wrapped a gown around Hetty. She fingered her wet hair.
‘Mmmm. Now do you have any ideas about how you want it? Just a bit off the ends, or something more exciting?’
‘Something more exciting,’ said Caroline. ‘Trust her,’ she said to Hetty. ‘She’s a genius.’
Indeed, by the time Susie had taken off quite a heap of hair, and blow-dried the remainder, Hetty felt a lot better.
‘All that extra length was weighing the hair down,’ Susie explained, as unexpected curls appeared from under her skilful fingers. ‘Now your natural curl can come through. When you wash it, just put on a dollop of mousse and scrunch it.’
‘It looks wonderful, Hetty,’ said Caroline. ‘Now you run along upstairs and find something to wear while I see Susie out.’
Hetty knew that Caroline had paid Susie, but she was so shooshed by Caroline when she suggested that she paid for her own haircut, she shut up.
Caroline was right about the little black dress being a cliché, and besides, Caroline’s dresses might be a bit too little for Hetty. What should she wear? Alistair’s woman, whether she was the same one or a new model, was bound to be sophisticated. Hetty had been but a short foray into naïveté for Alistair, she was sure. So did she want to compete, or be sweet? She was trying to improve on this potential song lyric, when Caroline came in.
‘Well, you can’t wear that bra, that’s for sure.’
‘I know it’s a bit grey, but it won’t show.’
‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you that bras show through your clothes? If they don’t give you a nice shape, there’s no point in wearing one. I’ve got every sort. Uplift, downlift, backless, topless, you name it, it’s stuffed in that drawer. Now,’ she gestured to the open wardrobe, ‘which of these do you fancy?’
‘God! I don’t know! I may not fit into anything. I’m not as slim as you.’
‘Yes you are, but if you feel like that, let’s not go for anything too tight over the hips. But I insist we go for sexy.’
‘Why? I don’t want Alistair back, you know.’
‘You’ll feel confident if you feel sexy.’
In the end Caroline found a rather revealing black number, which Hetty agreed to wear under a scarlet silk jacket with black velvet revers, which she loved. The decision made, Caroline started on Hetty’s make-up.
Connor was sitting on the sofa in Caroline’s sitting room, drinking ginger ale and reading last week’s Sunday papers. He stood up as Hetty and Caroline came in, but although he looked Hetty over, he made no comment on her appearance.
Hetty found it hard to swallow her disappointment as she tottered across the room in Caroline’s black suede stilettos. He was usually so forthright, she was expecting him either to say she looked fabulous or like a tart – probably the latter. But to go to all that trouble and for him not to say anything was galling.
‘You look very smart,’ she said to him, determined not to be mean-spirited.
Like her, he was dependent on borrowed finery. He had had a haircut and his thick, sisal-coloured locks had been trimmed and tamed, revealing, thought Hetty bitchily, that he had a forehead. Quite a high one. His eyebrows seemed less shaggy – surely not Vaselined into shape? And his nose, still crooked, gained nobility from being in less close proximity to his hair.
Jack’s dinner-jacket did his looks no harm, either. Hetty was used to seeing him in ancient jeans or cords and baggy sweaters – very similar to the clothes she lived in herself. All that sleek black flannel and gleaming white cotton smoothed out his creases so he seemed almost civilized. Not handsome, of course, but . . .
‘Very tasty,’ said Caroline frankly. ‘Almost as beautiful as Hetty, don’t you think, Connor?’
‘What are you asking me? Do I think I’m beautiful, or do I think Hetty’s beautiful?’
‘Either.’
‘I don’t respond to loaded questions. If you want a drink,’ he turned to Hetty, ‘have it quickly. We ought to go.’
Upstairs in Caroline’s bedroom, with Caroline’s bra and Caroline’s make-up on, she had felt some of Caroline’s self-confidence. Connor’s lack of interest was demoralizing. She declined a drink.
‘Come along then. Get your coat. Thank Jack very much for the DJ, Caroline – after you tell him you lent it to me.’
Caroline smiled and hugged Hetty. ‘Good luck, darling. It’ll go really well, I’m sure. You look wonderful, believe me. And as for you, you gorgeous hunk,’ she prodded Connor in the shoulder, ‘you don’t deserve a kiss. But do look after her, won’t you?’
Hetty slid into Connor’s battered, beautiful car, hoping the heater worked. Her legs felt bare with only a pair of tights to cover them up to her knees and, sitting down, the skirt rose several inches. Hetty hoped Mrs Makepiece had large napkins, so she could feel decent. At least in the dark of the car, Connor couldn’t see her lower thighs spread out.
She wished she was wearing her own clothes; it would have been nice to have some old and faithful garment about her to give her confidence. But perhaps she should take on Caroline’s persona along with her clothes. That would give Alistair something to think about.
Connor drove without speaking, handling the car gracefully, fast but safe. He didn’t accelerate up to junctions and then brake hard, or zoom away from them. She was grateful that, unlike Alistair, he would get her to their destination without making her sick.
‘Do you want directions?’ she asked at last, uncomfortable with the silence.
‘Not till we’re in the actual village. I know my way until then.’
‘It’s very kind of you to take me.’
‘Yes.’
‘Of course, I could perfectly well have taken myself –’
‘If Alistair hadn’t been coming. Yes, I know all that.’
Hetty gave up trying to make conversation. If they’d been a couple she could have appealed to him to be more supportive. This was an important occasion for her, he should back her up, not sulk. But they weren’t, so she had no right to ask anything of him.
‘So why are you so worked up about seeing Alistair again, then?’ He broke into her resentful thoughts. ‘Are you likely to burst into tears at the sight of him with another woman?’
‘Certainly not. But I am a bit – frightened of him.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, when we parted, I sort of – ran into his car.’
‘I was in my car at the time. His was a Porsche. I hit it several times.’
‘Bloody hell!’ He hadn’t been on her side before, now he was definitely on Alistair’s. ‘I’m not surprised you’re frightened If you did that to my car, I’d certainly beat you. Not that I’d wait this long to do it, of course,’ he added grimly.
She struck him a verbal blow where she knew it would hurt. ‘I could do much, much more to your car and it wouldn’t even show.’
His scowl was magnified by the moving shadows as they passed through the sporadic lights of a hamlet. ‘Don’t you believe it. I know every dent and every spot of rust, and when I’ve got time I’m going to restore it to the thing of beauty it once was.’ He shot her a glance as ugly as anything Quasimodo could produce. ‘And if you even look at it wrong, I’ll wallop you.’
Hetty ignored the threat and followed up on the passion. ‘Why can’t you feel like that about the house? It could be a thing of beauty with a little attention.’
‘A lot of attention, and a small fortune, which I haven’t got. And don’t change the subject. You want me there tonight to protect you from Alistair doing what you justly deserve to have done to you?’
‘I’m not frightened of him hitting me. He’s not a violent person.’ She shot a look of accusation at Connor, who didn’t notice. ‘I just don’t want the bill for the damage.’
‘I’m not surprised. You must have cost him thousands of pounds.’
‘The car was insured.’
‘But still. He’d have to pay the excess, and he’d lose his no-claims bonus.’
‘Well, my car died in the fight.’
‘Serve you bloody well right. You should treat cars with more respect.’
‘I was upset.’
‘That makes it all perfectly all right, of course.’
‘No, but it does justify the – violence of my actions.’
‘I doubt that very much. No one likes being dumped, but there’s no need to react like that.’
Hetty clenched her teeth. ‘He didn’t just dump me. He wanted to, but he didn’t want to just tell me, so he very carefully and deliberately arranged for me to catch him, and her, in bed.’
The car swerved slightly. Connor got it quickly under control and then brought it to a smooth halt under the lights of a pub.
‘We’re here. Give us a look at those directions.’ He snatched them from her.
At that moment, she hated Connor as much as she had ever hated Alistair, and wondered if there was any way she could possibly go home, now, without asking him to drive her. She had ten pounds in her evening bag, put there by Caroline for emergencies. It probably wasn’t enough for a taxi.
He tossed the directions at her. They landed on the floor. ‘Come on, Cinderella, let’s get you to your ball.’
He found the house quickly and easily, and parked his car on the gravel drive, the last in a chain of expensive company cars. He took her arm as she staggered on the thick gravel in her heels, and held on to it as they went up to the house. He rang the bell without giving Hetty time to renew her lipstick, or run her fingers through her carefully tousled hair.
‘Next time,’ he murmured as they heard the door being opened, ‘put sugar in his petrol tank. That would really bugger up his engine.’
When Mrs Makepiece opened the door, she found one of her guests looking very surprised indeed.
Hetty had been hoping that Alistair wouldn’t be there. It was a perfectly reasonable hope – if a more exciting invitation had come up he was quite capable of not showing up. But as she took off her coat and saw to her hair, Hetty noticed that her surroundings, though not large and indeed a little shabby, were grand. And Alistair cared about grandness. She sighed, angry with herself for still minding.
She knew what she had seen in him. He was handsome, powerful, and his attention was extremely flattering. What annoyed her was that she gone on being spellbound long enough to fall in love with him, to give him her virginity, when her brain should have told her he was a self-seeking snob long before either of these things could happen.
To her relief and surprise, she found Connor waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. He took her arm and took her into a drawing room where people were drinking champagne.
The room was full, but she saw Alistair immediately she entered it. She waited for the familiar stab of pain which thoughts of him had created for so long, but it never came. She still felt angry – incredibly angry – with him, but there was no churning in her stomach, no aching longing for a look or a smile she had once felt. It was such a relief that, when he caught her eye, she smiled at him. It was satisfying to register his surprise at her reaction. Then she remembered his car, and developed butterflies.
She was glad she’d gone for the little black dress and scarlet jacket. There are times when one wants to stick out from the crowd, make a statement, be individual. And there are times, like tonight, when there is safety in wearing more or less the same uniform as everyone else. It made you less likely to be picked off by the hyenas.
Mrs Makepiece introduced Connor and Hetty to a young couple who were part of the group staying for Easter. Alistair came up while they were talking about gliding. At least, Connor was talking, Hetty was warming up her champagne in her overheated hands and nodding politely.
‘Hetty,’ he said, significantly. ‘You look very . . .’
‘. . . Well?’ she suggested.
Connor turned towards Alistair. ‘Who’s this, darling?’ he asked, and put his hand on her waist, as if staking his claim.
Hetty managed the introductions, although she was taken aback by Connor’s form of address, not to mention his hand.
Alistair noticed the hand, too. ‘You cost me an awful lot of money, Hetty.’
‘She costs me an awful lot of money, too,’ said Connor. ‘But I reckon she’s worth it.’
‘She certainly does look . . .’ Alistair couldn’t bring himself to pay her a compliment either – he and Connor did have similarities – ‘. . . well cared for,’ he finished. Which was, Hetty decided, an insult.
‘Oh yes, Hetty’s got me looking after her now.’ Connor gave the words a weight that almost made them a warning.
‘So, where’s your girlfriend, Alistair?’ asked Hetty. ‘Is she here?’
‘Yes. Not the one you – met.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. I wouldn’t have recognized her with her clothes on.’ Hetty had to bite back a smirk at having managed to work this old joke into the conversation. Clichés certainly had their uses, be they little black dresses or ancient put-downs.
Mrs Makepiece – she had told them her Christian name but Hetty couldn’t remember it – was making waving gestures.
‘Come and eat, everyone. I’ve done a placement, so just find your places and sit down. It’s a bit of a squash, I’m afraid.’
There were twelve people sitting down to dinner. The dining-table had been made up of several tables, not all quite the same height, butted up together, and covered with sheets. It filled the small but lovely dining room and involved everyone in a lot of pulling in and pushing past. Hetty could see why Mrs Makepiece wanted somewhere bigger for her major celebration.
It was inevitable that she should be sitting near Connor, but having him plumb opposite, able to scrutinize her every move, was a little unnerving. Mind you, she comforted herself, Alistair would have been worse.
The food was distributed by a collection of young people, the children of the guests. Tottering piles of Melba toast, slabs of butter and huge bowls of pâté fought for space along the table. Bottles of red and white wine fitted in where they could. It was the kind of occasion that Hetty would normally have enjoyed, but with Alistair and Connor there, it might not be such fun.
Hetty’s neighbour poured her a glass of red wine. He had pleasant but unremarkable looks, and seemed not to be with anyone.
‘So, what do you do?’ Too late, she realized he would be bound to ask her the same question, and she would have to explain about Courtbridge House. With Connor sitting opposite. She took a glug of wine.
‘I’m an architect.’
‘Oh? What sort?’
‘Oh, nothing exciting like Richard Rogers I’m afraid. I deal with old buildings mostly.’
This gave them something in common, at least. ‘I’m living in an old building at the moment,’ she said quietly, checking to see that Connor was engaged in conversation with the blonde on his left.
‘Oh?’ He didn’t sound intrigued exactly, but he was prepared to go on with the conversation.
‘Mmm. I’ll tell you about it –’ She was just about to launch into the story of the lovely old house and the wicked heir to it when she felt Connor’s gaze upon her.
His eyes, she noticed for the first time, were hazel, and looked extremely perceptive, which could explain how he so often managed to come out with statements that were frighteningly near the knuckle. She gave Connor a brief smile, picked up the pâté and offered it to the man. ‘Have some. And some toast.’ Under cover of handing him the butter, and scraping it off the knife for him, she muttered, ‘And give me your card, if you’ve got one. I could do with a good architect.’
The good architect raised his eyebrows, not unflattered by Hetty’s attention. ‘But how do you know I am? Good, I mean?’
‘Quite frankly, I can’t afford to be fussy.’ Then, realizing she’d sounded rude, smiled and patted his hand, just like Caroline would have done. ‘Have you known Mrs Makepiece long?’
‘Felicity? All my life. She’s my godmother. She asked me down to cheer me up. I got divorced last year.’
‘Oh, I am sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Felicity has my convalescence well in hand. She’s a closet fairy godmother, always being nice to people she thinks might be lonely.’
‘Oh yes. I think I might be one of those.’
He smiled. ‘I think you must be the girl she invited for me. She had to drag another one up quickly when you wanted to bring a friend.’
‘Good God! Why didn’t she say I couldn’t?’ Hetty had forgotten all about Alistair, and the agony such a situation would have caused her.
‘She probably thought it was a long way for you to come on your own. By the way, I’m James Taylor.’
‘Hetty Longden.’
‘So who did you come with?’
She nodded in Connor’s direction. ‘I came with him, but we’re not a couple. What about you? Who did Felicity get for you when I messed things up?’ He gestured to the blonde who seemed to be greatly appreciating Connor’s attention. ‘Oh.’ Hetty felt responsible. Connor had taken this man’s partner. ‘I am sorry. Do you want me to call him off?’
James shook his head. ‘Not at all, I’m very happy with the way things have turned out.’
Felicity Makepiece’s husband bellowed from the top of the table. ‘Pass your plates down, chaps. It’s time for the beef stew thingy.’
‘Did you have a card?’ said Hetty in the resultant confusion. ‘I really need someone like you.’
A moment later she met Connor’s eyes. He had not only heard this slightly rash remark, but had also seen her slip James’s card into her bag. Judging by his expression, he was not pleased.